Batting outa order

[whiskers_ump]

This happen in my first plate game last night. Visitors bat the first six players. However,
#16 bats in the 3rd positions whereas #7 should have. This is not brought to my attention by the
defense. The only reason I knew it had occurred was offending team 1st base coach told me
when she passed on way to dugout after 3rd out. Told her she could not "call it" on self, so
fix it. {I did not examine my lineup at this time. Did not want to inadvertly alert other team.}
3rd inning #7 is due up as second batter in her scheduled position in the lineup and when she
appears in the batter's box on first pitch singles and just before the 1st pitch to the next
batter defensive coach calls time. "Blue, they are batting out of order!" I check my lineup and #7
was due up because she follows the previous batter on my lineup card.
To shorten it a little, in the 1st inning when the BOR occurred, def. coach, keeping book changed
the position of the two batters that had batted out of order so now naturally he is showing that #16 should be batting. Then proceeds to chew on me for allowing this to happen in the first place. His argument is that since that is the way they batted to begin with, that they had made the mistake on originial line-up turned in, so he had just changed it. Coaches - love'em.

glen

[greymule]

It is not the ump's job to call attention to a team's batting out of order. A team can bat out of order, bat in reverse order, skip batters, send somebody up twice in a row, all night as long as the defense doesn't appeal.

The lineup you were given at the beginning of the game is the lineup. Nobody can change the order because the team batted out of order the first time around.

No matter how different from the lineup the team actually bats, after one pitch to any batter, the legal batter is the one who followed the batter who batted last. If #7 bats instead of #4, one pitch to whoever is next in the box makes #7's at bat legal and establishes #8 as the proper batter, no matter who was skipped.

Sometime in the 1970s the Pirates were at Shea Stadium to play the Mets, and before the game the two teams filmed some action to be part of some movie that Walter Matthau was in. In the movie, Stargell batted and then Bonds (let's say—I can't remember who the players actually were). Problem was, Stargell batted ahead of Bonds in the real game, too, though the manager had handed the ump a lineup with Bonds ahead of Stargell. So the Mets let the Pirates bat out of order twice through the lineup. The third time around, Stargell got a key hit. The Mets appealed, and Bonds—not Stargell—was called out. (Note that the Mets had to wait until Stargell completed his time at bat.) With Bonds out for failing to bat when he should have, Stargell, the next legal batter, batted.

Notice that the umps didn't say anything until the Mets appealed. Amazing that no one caught it for so long.